


dead things

by kimchiimoon



Series: egyptian cotton [2]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Demons, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Eventual Smut, Fluff, M/M, Necromancy, Protective Levi (Shingeki no Kyojin), References to Depression, Romance, Sorcerers, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-24
Updated: 2020-02-24
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:06:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22876006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kimchiimoon/pseuds/kimchiimoon
Summary: Erwin, a solitary necromancer, lies ostracized in the outskirts of his village. He is the monster in the forest that the children fear, the demon that plagues their nightmares.In the throes of his loneliness and isolation, he accidentally summons a sorcerer.
Relationships: Levi/Erwin Smith
Series: egyptian cotton [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1303478
Comments: 7
Kudos: 54





	dead things

Autumn brings Erwin pain. 

The leaves begin to rot from the trees, taking with them his tender heart that aches to beat in the palms of a different body. Bearing witness to the decay fills him with a sordid energy that he wants nothing to do with, wants nothing more than to rebuke back into the arms of the devil. 

In a desperate attempt to appease his autumn blues, Erwin rises early with the chill that sorrowful September morning that marks the beginning of the season, his bed cold to the touch on one side, and draws open his curtains with a heavy sigh. The drapery sweeps along the uneven wooden floors, boards thick and warped with knots, the fabric kicking up a fair amount of dust. 

It is so early in the season, yet Erwin’s cottage is already showing the effects of decay. Seldom does Erwin reanimate his breathless home during the autumn massacre. The darkness of the season eats at his heart and latches onto his only and constant companion. 

_Loneliness._

It takes all of his energy to keep those creeping tendrils of winter from sucking life away from his humanity. 

With a bleeding heart and fingertips buzzing with restless sorcery, Erwin looks out at his garden, forlorn. The silver maple leaves are already trembling, color draining from their sticky palms. Erwin will embrace them for the final time this year soon. His willows, grand and wise, are weeping as the cold takes their wave. Ever beyond his fenced off garden are the woods, and Erwin can feel the circle of life as it closes in around him and begs him to complete it and invert it. 

It isn’t _all_ bad, he supposes, bounding down the stairs and into the kitchen. His home is overcrowded with dead that looks alive; Flowers that have rotted and wilted but bloomed again even brighter than before at Erwin’s touch. 

Some of the prettiest flowers only bloom in the ugliest winter. Bloody, beautiful, and burgundy hellebores; innocent, pure cyclamens beside them. It is not a season entirely of death and calamity. 

Some of the warmest days are dusted by a winter’s frost. 

Erwin places his aged tea kettle on the stove burner with weariness in his actions despite the liveliness in his veins, and turns to his sad, wilting ivy. It hangs just over the abandoned kitchen table, and has died twice, rescued by the love between Erwin’s fingers.

Only momentarily does Erwin scrutinize the poor plant. Touching it makes him nauseous with the power that makes him so feared. Death eases through his very soul, calms him in a way that brings forth suicidal thoughts. 

His plant is brittle at its core, stiff already with decay. It’s long, pendulous leaves curl bitterly at their edges. Erwin can either revive the suicidal plant a third time and force it to live once more as a hermit’s companion, or release it from suffering. 

The decision to drain the plant to ash is a quick one, though it mists Erwin’s eyes to do such a thing. 

The kettle’s handle is dusted with the wet fingerprints of ash as Erwin lifts it when it whistles, pouring steaming water into a green mug. Tea steeps easy in the cup, and Erwin lets the steam warm his fingers. He peers out the kitchen window, looking over his beloved, dying garden. 

It is going to be a long, cold, lonely winter, thinks he. 

Long, cold, and lonely indeed. 

. . . .

October is a beast of an omen. The month graces itself callously at Erwin’s feet in the form of sulphuric, rotten eggs shattering against his doors and windows, followed by the squeals of laughter ripped from teenager’s throats. 

Of course, Erwin thinks, chest aching as the smell seeps through the drafts in the doorframe and broken seals in the windows. 

October is the month of mischief, and he dreads it every year. Halloween plunges him into hiding. 

Everyone wants to torment the bringer of necromancy before the dead walk the earth, and Erwin has always found it counterintuitive. Should the villagers not worship him like a God during this month? Should they not pray for his mercy, for he can drain life with a single touch and give it like an illness the same? 

Hallow’s Eve is quickly approaching, and as the days go dark, so does Erwin’s heart. He wonders if this is his fate — shall he be a bitter hermit his entire life? Doomed to isolation with a heart that aches for acceptance? 

If he could kill himself, perhaps he would, but such is the curse of a necromancer. He cannot take himself out. He could beg somebody else. Could he hire somebody else? Perhaps, but not even a bringer of death would be dull enough to touch him. 

In the night, after scrubbing his windows free of rotten eggs and tossing the rags that soaked up the embryos, Erwin is restless. 

His garden has died, with only a few Autumn-blooming flowers and evergreens surviving to keep him company, and his fingertips beg for the release of his power. Unfortunately, he fears the nature of the villagers’ scorn should they peek through the trees and see vibrant blossoms and hugging vines providing comfort to the devil. _Selfish!_ they will cry, lamenting over the dying last of their summer harvest. _The diabolical hermit eats like a king and hoards his fruits while the village starves!_ Truly Erwin is a devil, for gluttony is a sin.

Never mind the dulled logic that the very minds that would scrutinize him for surrounding himself with such selfish, lovely beauty, are the same ones that waste their eggs vandalizing his property, and ostracize him to such lonely distress. 

It is his lonely heart that causes him to indulge himself just this once. 

He finds himself bundled in a thick sweater, his garden reeking of sulphur, standing before his crippled red roses.

The poor buds are thrice dead, their resilience seemingly shattered by the bullying north wind. Erwin sadly traces his roses’ petals, his touch drying the faded, greying red even more as he reserves his energy. There is hesitation in his touch yet — is the company of a single bloom worth the inevitable ridicule he will face as a consequence? 

In the end, the answer is yes, it is worth it. There is no word or feeling greater than hate, and Erwin is already hated. 

The realization, though not a new one, brings stinging tears to his eyes. Humiliated at his own shame (Oh, why can’t his heart wither and take his feelings away with it?), Erwin shamefully thumbs away his tears before they can fall too far down his cheeks. 

With wet fingers, Erwin pinches the stem of the tallest rose, hissing softly when the thimble of a dried, pricked thorn pierces the salty, tear-stained pad of his thumb. The rich, lively crimson of his blood predicts the color of the reborn petals, and Erwin does not think much of it. A simple prick of the finger does not hurt him. 

Erwin feels his heartbeat in his throat and his fingers tingle with the most anticlimactic displays of power, and the rose blush blossoms as though it were the warmest of summer nights, it’s brittle stems becoming a vibrant green. It’s petals are a beautiful deep red, true to the very color of Erwin’s blood. The roses tremble in the cold October, but still reach toward him with a supple gratitude. Erwin’s eyes become even mistier as the roses offer him no warmth in their grasp. Oh, how lovely it would be to spend a night with a single companion, and one who may offer him company and seek out him in kind? He should be so lucky. 

Yet, Erwin knows these thoughts are for naught — he has fantasies amidst his hermitude and dreams in his empty bed. 

_“Sose benrenki,”_ Erwin murmurs, tracing his delicate hands over the strength in the stem of the rose. 

_“Sose bluotrenki,”_ His voice wavers and blood grows cold against the roses’ thorns.

He sighs heavily, his voice aching from disuse, and caresses the petals of the tallest rose, still blinking away tears. 

_“Sose lidirenki.”_ The words break in his throat just as his lashes do, tears spilling down his cheeks. 

The roses wave goodbye to him, the willows weep with him, and the ivys curl around his ankles as Erwin trudges back to his cottage. The ground is crisp and dead beneath his feet, leaves crunching their own sad goodbyes to Erwin and to the world.

He goes to sleep that night feeling extraordinarily ordinary, and extraordinarily alone. 

. . . . 

Noise startles Erwin awake at the earliest dawn. 

Noise — noise that does not sound like the achy, creaky, dying noises of his cottage and the forest. _No_ , Erwin thinks, his eyes glued to the ceiling and his heart beating quickly in his chest. No, this is the noise of something living. 

And it is the clang and clatter of metal. 

It comes from downstairs, and Erwin’s fingertips graze his bedding, clutching ever so lightly. He attempts to ground himself in this way, attempts to stop his thoughts from their catastrophic gyre. But is it not only natural for him to assume the worst? Especially when just the day before, younglings had trashed his home in the name of their parents’ word? 

Perhaps the troublemakers are back. Perhaps they are foolish enough to attempt to harm him physically. They cannot, of course, but Erwin’s heart fills with dread. If it truly is the trespassing teenagers, he will have no choice but to drain their energy. No choice but to kill them. 

Let it be a creature, prays he. An animal. Let it be his own neglect to shut a window that has lead a cold, woodland creature to knocking around downstairs, for Erwin does not want to do harm. 

It takes all of his bravery to pull from his bed. Barefoot and brandishing no weapons except for his fingertips, Erwin steps gently on his creaky floors, not wanting to alert the intruder to his wakefulness. All the while, he prays that it is nothing more than a lost bird, a confused squirrel. 

Please, do not let it be a person. Do not let it be a foolish, reckless child. Somebody he must kill. 

As he rounds down his staircase, all secrecy is lost, his weight making the achy steps creak and groan — but it does not matter the noise he makes.

Erwin makes it to the very bottom step, hands hanging uselessly at his side, and stares in his own dumb awe, into his kitchen. 

The intruder is alive, that is very certain. 

But the intruder is definitely not a villager, and seemingly has no cruel intent. In fact, Erwin can detect life energy — something magical and whimsical and so unlike that which radiates from the humans that reside in the village. 

The intruder is… _small_. 

The intruder is very small man with very beautiful features and skin as pale as the snow that has yet to dust over the ground. His hair is dark, reminding Erwin of the inkwells that produce the literature that keeps him company. And the clinging and clanging from earlier? Why, the tea kettle rests on the stove, the steam spewing from it’s spout matching the steam rising from a cup between his visitor’s fingers. 

Erwin only blinks, his mouth dropping open a fraction as he watches the man, dressed in a casual white shirt and cream colored trousers, take a sip from the mug. 

And how oddly pleasant it is to watch that small, pretty face twist up in disgust as he peers down into the cup. 

“This is disgusting.” The visitor regards with a resigned sigh. He looks to Erwin for an explanation. 

Erwin blanches, his mind blank and his heart still racing with adrenaline, for he has no way of knowing this strange person’s intentions in his home.

“It’s old.” Erwin deadpans, thoughtlessly letting the words fall from his lips. His toes curl against the cold wooden floors, as if grounding him and reminding him that yes, he is home. He is… safe? 

The visitor gives a daft, humorless snicker, and drinks from the mug once more.

“Indubitably.” He sets the mug on the kitchen table, and in the same move, pulls out a wobbly chair and sits neatly in it, his legs crossing politely. 

“Well,” hums the visitor, looking at him expectantly. “You called?”

Erwin is still stuck in confusion, breaking a little bit to slouch forward in exasperation. _Called_ ? As in, _summoned?_

“I did no such thing. What are you?” 

The visitor stares back at Erwin, his eyes — a pure, stunning grey — unyielding. Piercing. They strike a heat in Erwin’s stomach that bubbles through to his heart. 

They hold each other’s eyes for a moment, Erwin’s bloodshot and swollen from a few too many tears shed before bed, before the visitor clicks his tongue against the roof of his mouth. 

“It seemed unorthodox.” The visitor murmurs to himself, grasping for the mug again. 

“Unorthodox?” Erwin parrots, his voice strong — how nice it is to have a strength in his tone after so long without bravery! “Unorthodox is breaking into my home and brewing tea as though it were your own.” 

Finishing a long drink of stale tea, the visitor does not even blink. “It _is_ my own.” 

Briefly, Erwin considers his own sanity. Has solitude finally taken its toll? Can he no longer count on his plants and the bugs to keep him company? The isolation seems to have finally spurred him into psychosis. There is a strange man in his house, drinking his old tea as if he has been here for centuries. Erwin is not even positive that the man is real, let alone if his intentions are as mundane as breaking and entering for a cup of tea. 

Apparently, Erwin wears his confusion quite blatantly. The man heaves a heavy sigh (though perhaps that is a twinge of irritation?), and uncrosses his legs, still so delicate and calculated in his movements. 

He runs a hand through his dark hair, and Erwin half expects his pale fingers to come away from the strands stained blue. 

They do not. 

“You summoned me last night,” He stands to his feet and gestures humorlessly up and down his own body. “So here I stand. Levi Ackerman. Sorcerer and conductor of all things sterile. And now,” the turn of Levi’s hand from his own body. He gestures to Erwin, “I am bound to you.” 

Erwin thinks he is going to faint, so he stumbles backwards, his eyes never leaving Levi, and allows himself to fall into an old, tired leather chair. 

“I did not summon you.” Erwin says, more to himself than to his new _bound-to-him_ companion. “I did not summon you.” 

Levi turns only partially away from Erwin to grasp his tea mug. “Always with the poverty of speech.” He hums. 

Erwin looks at his fingers, his pricked thumb only a dot of a wound, and blinks. “Did I summon you?” He asks, looking up to Levi in a near frenzy. 

It is a stupid question, but one Levi has been asked many times as a result of his surprising materializations. Unbothered, Levi takes another sip of his tea. The mug must surely be near empty now. 

“You did,” He nods slowly. His voice is charming. Deep and monotonous but soothing. 

Maybe Erwin would say that about anybody who spoke to him — it has been so long. Still, he feels skepticism tickle his bones. There was no ritual that Erwin performed that could have possibly summoned and _bound_ him to a sorcerer. Has he been hexed? Was Levi summoned and sent by somebody else? Surely Levi would have killed him by now, and though somewhat deadpan, Erwin does not sense malintent from Levi. 

Erwin traces the prick on his thumb and watches his fingers trace over the little, nearly healed wound. It is so insignificant.

He tries to ignore the feeling of Levi’s eyes on him, though that doesn’t stop him from thinking about the pretty grey color of the sorcerer’s eyes. 

Before Erwin even has a chance to tiredly look up and ask _how?_ , Levi is already speaking. 

“ _Sose benrenki,”_ says Levi. 

Erwin’s head whips up, his eyes wide, lips parted. 

Levi stares at him unflinching, not daring to break eye contact, yet not the slightest bit hostile with his gaze. 

_“Sose bluotrenki.”_

_The rose blush blossoms._  
 _The roses tremble in the cold October, but still reach toward him with a supple gratitude.  
_ How lovely it would be to spend a night with a single companion?

Erwin finishes, breathless. “ _Sose lidirenki.”_

_The roses wave goodbye to him._

The final words hang heavily in the air, and with Levi still looking at him so placid and expectant, Erwin feels a renaissance. There is a calming thing about Levi. His face is so pretty and serene, and his voice is very tranquil. If this is the creature Erwin has accidentally bound to himself, what a lucky binding indeed.

But an inhumane one, as Erwin has neither desire nor need for a sorcerer, even if it would be nice to have the company around the house. 

“I do not have a need for you.” Erwin finally says. He half expects Levi, with his blasé demeanor, to simply nod and go on his merry way. Instead, Levi stares at Erwin.

It seems that _all_ Levi really does is stare at Erwin, and Erwin shifts uncomfortably in his seat. 

Levi blinks slowly. “Are you sure?” 

_No._

“Yes.” 

“I do not think you are, Erwin Smith.” 

Levi is right. They both know it, yet Erwin is just oceans deep in his world of denial. What good is a companion if the desire to be present is only an accidental binding? Surely this must be Levi’s worst nightmare — being stuck to a necromancer, especially one as pathetic as Erwin is, for an undefined amount of time. How boring must it be for a sorcerer of Levi’s capacity!

Erwin swallows, _please stay_ stuck in his throat. He coughs the words away. 

“I do not have a real need for you,” Erwin admits. “The only thing I can get from you that I cannot get on my own is conversation.” 

Levi smiles softly at this and nods, though it seems he is concealing a laugh. Erwin is too struck by that shy, sweet smile on the sorcerer’s lips.

Levi shrugs. “So? Use me for conversation. Keep me bound away from holiday wishes.” 

Proposed mutualism makes the entire situation seem brighter — could it be possible that Levi wants recluse just as badly as Erwin wants company? 

Instead of offering something intelligent; a tangent of conversation, Erwin instead says: 

“You have an oddly specific summoning ceremony.”

The little sorcerer smiles, and it is charming and sweet — so unlike the cynical deadpan that seems to be typical to Levi.

“I do not like being summoned.” offers Levi, running his tongue across his upper row of teeth. 

“Erwin Smith,” Levi says Erwin’s name in the same way that he says the prayer that accidentally tied red thread around their hands. 

How different it is to hear his name spoken as a prayer instead of a curse!

The sorcerer walks incredibly light on his feet, Erwin notices as Levi circles around and takes a seat on the couch in front of Erwin. The old leather is soft and comfortable, and there is a heavy, green wool blanket draped over the arm. 

Levi delicately crosses his legs, mimicking his earlier position in the kitchen. His eyes continue to stare unflinchingly at Erwin, but there is no scorn in his gaze. There is a warmth that Erwin cannot place, a fondness that he may possibly projecting onto the sorcerer. 

“Erwin Smith,” says Levi again, this time firmer. “Are you a nuisance?” 

At this, Erwin cannot help but snicker, if not a bit sardonically. He shakes his head. “Only in existence.” 

Levi regards him with an incredible amount of affection in his eyes — or perhaps Erwin is making that up. It has been a very long time since anybody has looked directly at him, let alone looked directly at him without sneering or uttering a fruitless curse upon him. 

The sorcerer’s gaze falls to the floor, and he smiles softly, almost fondly, and shakes his head. Levi clicks his tongue against the roof of his mouth.

“We’ll have to get fresh tea leaves if we are going to get along, Erwin Smith.”

Erwin, his heart bound tightly, feels life coursing through him for the first time in many years, and he laughs sweetly — goodness, he can still laugh! — and nods, pressing his tongue between his teeth. 

“I do think we can arrange for that, Levi Ackerman.”

**Author's Note:**

> first fic in a very long time. i missed you all. see you soon :)


End file.
